


This Condition Is A Curse

by Countlecterviii



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal is in prisonn, Human!Will, I did not have the time to write the fic I wanted, I have lots of ideas but I don't have the fucking time, I just shouldn't write this is stupid, I'm so so sorry, M/M, Spooky Fannibal Fic Exchange 2018, Vampire!Hannibal, urgh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 20:43:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Countlecterviii/pseuds/Countlecterviii





	This Condition Is A Curse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplesocrates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplesocrates/gifts).



Will had been waiting. A visit from Jack, Kade at a push had been expected, but the 3 SUV’s with a suited Alana Bloom in the middle, cane burying in the snow with every step towards Molly and Will’s woodland home, Will’s eyebrows lifted, tilting and stretching the whitened scar across his forehead with them. 

\--

“What happened to Chilton?” Will could barely contain a wry upturn of the corner of his mouth. He sat heavy in a comfortably worn armchair, the days work catching up with him in a way that made his muscles ache pleasantly. 

Alana kept one hand loosely on her cane, finger tips running over the silver handle, her smile mirrored, free hand pushing a single loose curl back. “He thinks he’s got himself made, he left the BSCHI quicker than they could put Lecter in it.” She paused, picking the tumbler of whiskey from the table, “Hannibal the Cannibal” the glass hid her gentle laugh.

“You have a lot more on your hands than a cannibal.”

“He’s not even that, with him technically not being human.” She fell to silence, trying to keep the smile on her face.

“And now we’re at the part of the conversation where you tell me what you want.” Will sunk half his glass of whiskey.

“Hannibal hasn’t fed in 6 months; since his incarceration. He’s been offered blood bags, all types, he’s refusing. Despite everything, despite what he is, I have a duty of care to him, he’s my patient-“ Alana’s voice buzzed into the background, a flurry of sorried words, a woman between causes. Will pressed his back into the cushioning of his favourite chair, head tipping back to look at the ceiling, he pressed until he thought the material would swallow him whole. 

“-Say it.” Will interrupted, mentally re-entering the room, setting the glass, whiskey no longer present, on the table. “If you’re here to ask me, what you want to ask me, I want you to say the words.”

“I want you to be fully in possession of the facts before you make a decision-“

“-Say it Alana.” Will wished he had his glasses. 

Alana’s lips twitched, the pity she’d spent months repressing in the early stages of their relationship bubbled to the surface. “Hannibal has said that he’ll only feed from the vein, and only if it’s you. If this doesn’t happen, he’ll simply waste and die.”

“He’s a vampire, give him a couple more months and a blood bag and he’ll cave.” Will stood sharply, arm jolting to show the psychiatrist the door.

“I just need to put it on the file that I asked.” Alana nodded gently, standing slowly, her hips still fragile. “I’m sorry Will.”

“Thank you for coming Alana. I wish the circumstances were different.”

“You know where I am.” Her smile was soft, and genuine, stepping towards the crisp chill. “Just for a visit.”

\--

The winding was therapeutic, taking the thread around and around the hook in front of him, taking something deadly, sharp, vicious, and making it beautiful, soft. Taking the blank canvas and building upon it until the vision was complete. He thought that after Hannibal had adapted his flies to serve as evidence against him, he would be less fond of the craft. It’s function and charm allured him with comforts. In those comforts a vision of Hannibal appeared, perched on his work bench, facing away from Will’s work and looking out into the now empty room. Hannibal said nothing, the pallor of his skin and glazed eyes were known to Will, but he didn’t look. 

“It’s time your tastes were brought down a peg or two, you can drink from the blood bags.” Will mumbled bitterly, his faux focus on the fishing flies. “I don’t understand why you’d want me anyway, I imagine I mostly taste of whiskey, this is all a-“

“Will? Were you talking to me? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the start.” Molly’s warm blonde hair whipped around the corner as she guided Wally to taking his boots off properly. Her head leant back into the room, “we passed black SUV’s going the other way, who was that? Did you know them?”

Molly knew, but she has the remarkable ability to accept some of Will’s, natural quirks, and make them seem like the most normal thing in the world in an instant, effortlessly. Will could never be embarrassed, never want to hide himself, and she maintained this balance with grace and love alone.

“It was Alana, she wanted me to visit Baltimore.” 

She nodded, “was it nice to see her?”

“Yes, I suppose it was.” Will’s hand skirted along his work bench before he stood, “I’ll begin with dinner.”

\--

“What new highlights are there in Baltimore?” Molly pulled a second pair of thick socks on and stoked the fire in their bedroom a little more before jumping into bed, shuffling to shake the sheets of the days chilled air. Will grinned at her nightly routine, snuggling down into the bedding to watch her, almost trying to hide his mouth. “Alana is stuck between a rock and a hard place, she is the caretaker of the man who betrayed her, and everything she thought about herself. I couldn’t take that on.”

“When is she getting married?”

“Soon, the details are still vague, to stop the press getting wind I imagine.” Will’s eyes begun to drift closed, his sleep had been better with Molly, perhaps not as long, or as deep as others, but it was peaceful. 

“Will you go to Baltimore?” Molly pushed a little more than she usually did, rolling onto her side to face him, the tips of fingers moving across the stitches on the pillow beneath her head, an attempt to keep her fingers as still as possible.

“It would be helpful to Alana, making her day job a little easier.” His gaze almost wistful already.

“At what cost to you?”

“A wedding present then.” Will attempted to shrug her concerns away, turning onto his back.

“I will always be here, when you come back.” Molly nodded, her eyelids fluttered closed.

\--

With the roles reversed, Alana provided a light tea in her much-improved office. “It’s an identical room to Dr Chilton’s old office, but on the opposite side of the building, I fitted Chilton’s old office for Hannibal’s cell, he wanted book shelves.”

Will stifled a small laugh, lips twisting “and who do you think is finding this situation less favourable, Chilton, or Hannibal?”

“I think Hannibal can still smell Chilton’s cologne in the walls.” Alana tittered. 

“And how is it that you keep a vampire of indeterminate age within those walls? It’s not cologne alone.” 

“Five of the sides are reinforced with concrete, steel, carbon fibre and titanium and ultimately, explosives. The sixth side is simply layered plastic with a material contained within it that Hannibal cannot touch without his skin falling off.” She smirked behind the delicate china of her tea cup. “We have a protocol in place should it come to that, you can speak with him alone, but if he feeds, we need armed guards in the room.” She stood.

Will mirrored, “I’m here to speak with Hannibal only, it’s all he wants, he doesn’t need to feed from me.”

“We’re ready, regardless.” Alana nodded, Will saw a twinge of sadness in the turn of her mouth.

Through darkened corridors and reinforced doors into the bowels of Baltimore Hospital for the Criminal Insane, the tap of Alana’s cane a conductor’s baton for the cries of the prisoners. She stopped suddenly, “the door is on the left, I won’t be far away, I think he’ll be more honest with just you.”

Will stepped from her, closer to the door, deliberate strides, moving through the double doors. This scene had in some manner featured in a number of his dreams, Hannibal stood in the middle of his cell, peering out of the shadows of his tank. You couldn’t tell whether you were looking at the shark or whether the shark was looking at you.

The floor was empty, a shift on the bed, slow and steady revealed Hannibal, and Will couldn’t look away from the sallowness this time, it dragged him in. The reason for Alana’s visit made sense.

Hannibal had always exuded restrained strength, from every pour. A man whose every movement, every breath was planned and executed perfectly. The foundations seemed to shake as he lifted himself from the bed, the reserves of energy running low as soft soled steps took him slightly closer to the glass, slightly closer to the light. An incline of his head which, if anyone could have noticed it, they would have mistaken for a stretch to the tendons in his neck, brought Will-touched air over his palate. “Hello Will.”

The doors, disguised as standard wood, brought themselves closed softly behind him. “Alana told me of your request.”

“And so you came.” 

“We can talk, you can drink from the blood bags and-“

“I can’t drink from the blood bags, not anymore.” Hannibal’s head twitched in half a shake. Will’s resolute charge stuttered, jolted by an interruption he couldn’t have expected from the man he knew.

“Your options ran out Hannibal, this is where you belong.”

“I know I have no options. This was never a conversation I wanted to have behind this glass.” His head tilted again, surveying the room before stepping closer to the barrier between them. “Enough is known about vampires to make people believe they can cage us, control us, reduce us to the human ideal, but much of our world is still deliberately, unilluminated. This condition is a curse, and when we love it’s drawn from us, used against us, and turned into our idea of functional satisfaction. If I drank from the blood bags it would turn to ash in my mouth.” His hooded eyes closed in shadow as clouds drew over the moon above their heads.

The silence was pervasive, oppressive, yet it almost seemed to draw them together, luring. 

“A conversation from behind the glass…” Will trailed off. His eyes took the same route Hannibal’s had moments before, to each corner of the wall between them. “Cage, believe they can cage us.” His voice seemed absent, as his brain ticked over.

Watching a predator move from the back foot, to the front foot should cause every alarm bell to twitch. Hannibal stepped forward, pressed a palm to the glass, the skin rendering threat now nothing but that which was designed to shatter under his gaze. And so it did, cracks crawling along to the corners of Will’s sight as he stepped back, the scene bathed in red alarm light and the tinkling of crystal rain scattering on the floor.

Soft, quiet footsteps turned into scratching fractures. Straight towards Will.

And the whole room went black.


End file.
